The positional settings on any vehicle's (e.g. an automobile's) suspension system significantly affect the vehicle's driving characteristics, including handling, tire wear, fuel efficiency, safety, passenger comfort, and the like. There is typically a trade-off between these characteristics, whereby one set of settings tends to optimize some driving characteristics, while another set of settings tends to optimize other driving characteristics.
For example, vehicles predominantly used for normal road applications typically use more neutral settings for camber, castor and/or toe that optimize passenger comfort, but sacrifice handling performance. On the other hand, vehicles predominantly used for competition applications (e.g. racing) typically use more aggressive settings that optimize handling performance, but sacrifice passenger comfort.
If a vehicle is generally used for a single purpose only, settings can be fixed appropriately for that application. However, there are many vehicles that are used for more than one purpose, or in more than one set of driving conditions, where it is desirable to alter settings. For example, many modern sports cars are used for commuting to work during the week (where passenger comfort is desirable), and then used for sport/recreational use on the weekend (where handling performance is desirable).
Suspension settings that may be adjusted on a vehicle in order to alter driving characteristics may include: spring rates, damper rates, wheel alignment (e.g., camber, castor and toe), anti-roll bar rates, roll centers, tire pressures, and the like. While magnetic or adaptive dampers allow the damping rates of a suspension system to be conveniently adjusted via the push of a button or automatically, all other settings must be adjusted manually, most commonly by a mechanic. For people frequently using their vehicles for more than purpose, or in more than one set of driving conditions, it is time-consuming and expensive to alter settings often.
Thus, there is a need for a solution that enables suspension settings other than just damper rates to be quickly and easily altered, for example, by the press of a button or automatically. Further, it would be particularly useful to provide solutions that may be retrofitted onto existing suspensions systems. Described herein are apparatuses (e.g. devices and systems) and methods of making and operating them, which address this need. Any of the apparatuses described herein may manually, automatically or semi-automatically (e.g., electromechanically, robotically, etc.) adjust one or more suspension settings such as camber, toe, and castor or combinations of these.